The iRobot Roomba 980 Robot Vacuum Cleaner

Robot vacuums sweep pet hair, lint and dust from floors before they settle. They can also avoid obstacles like furniture that is tippy and staircases.

The majority of robotic vacuums require maintenance. This includes emptying the bin (and occasionally, rinsing it) and wiping the cameras and sensors. Also, they need to be plugged into an electrical source. Many have smartphone apps to schedule, adjust settings and more.

Roomba 960 by iRobot

The iRobot Roomba 980 is the latest in the line of top-of-the-line robotic vacuum cleaners that are a staple of any modern household. This model comes with a HEPA-filter to aid those suffering from allergies. It also has a powerful battery which can be cleaned for up to two hours before returning to its dock automatically when the bin is full.

Smart mapping is another feature that assists in identifying areas in your home that require attention and creates a path for cleaning around them. This technology is very efficient in navigating around toys left on the floor, or furniture legs sticking out from underneath things. It also has a camera sensor that snaps the Roomba back to the real world when it starts drifting from its intended location.

iRobot has also included an additional set of rollers beneath the Roomba that do not have bristles, and therefore are more likely to withstand tangles than previous models. These are also a little higher than the older rollers and are able to fit under beds and couches that are low and are designed to let this model move more easily across a variety of flooring types.

The Roomba 980 differs from other high-end models by its brand new dirt detection feature, which makes use of a camera in order to identify dirt that has been embedded. This is an improvement over the previous version which relied on a sensor-driven pseudorandom cover method to bounce around the room and clean the area three times, at different angles.

The Roomba 980 performed well in our tests on carpets and hard floors. It scored highly on carpets with low pile and on mid-pile. It did a decent job of picking up pet hair, but it was struggling with extremely thick and long pet fur that was stuck together.

Despite these minor mop Robot Vacuum shortcomings, the Roomba 980 remains one of our best robot vacuum under 200-performing robots, and isn't even nearly as expensive as the other top-of-the-line models in this list. It's still packed with a variety of features that we'd expect to find in a flagship model, but it doesn't have all the fancy app-enabled functions or smart home integration that you'll find in other top models.

The iRobot Roomba is simple to set up and get working immediately. After removing the yellow bin insert and battery pull tab from the undercarriage, it is simply connected to the wall socket or one of its Home Base docking stations, click the "Clean button" and let it work. It will automatically return to its dock when its battery is out or is full of debris, and it also has indicators on the top to indicate when its bin is full or it requires recharging, or its Wi-Fi signal is not working.